Health Policy During the Great Leap Forward

Abstract

Heretofore, analysts have argued that one characteristic of mobilization in China is to provide uniformity in policy direction. This paper sets out to demonstrate that, in at least the public health area, a diverse set of public policies was pursued even in a period as apparently “radical” as the Great Leap Forward (1958–60). The reason for this policy diversity is that different segments of health policy were made in different political arenas, or institutional settings; the pressures, perceptions and resources which characterized one of these political arenas did not necessarily characterize another. The “failures” of the Leap did not simply arise from a ubiquitous “radical” assertion of power but, on the contrary, resulted from the inconsistencies in leadership and programme characteristic of diverse policy-making arenas. Because policy-making responsibility is divided among political arenas, political bargaining and conflict have characterized the allocation to them of different health issues; elaborate strategies have been devised by organizations in order to acquire and /or hold certain areas of policy and unburden themselves of others.